Half the Cost, Double the Results

Leveraging process redesign and technology tools to supercharge sourcing, screening and talent management in the new economy.

“The availability of great talent is extraordinary, but finding that talent is harder than ever before”

The bad news is that you have to cut staff and implement a hiring freeze, but the good news is that there is no longer a ‘war for talent’ so you’ll cut external recruiting expenses, right? Wrong. You may have fewer openings, but you have many more people applying, which will significantly increase the time spent screening and responding to applicants. This will exhaust your HR team and Hiring Managers, particularly if you have reduced staff recently. The last thing you want to do is further damage your brand by becoming a ‘black hole’ of candidate inquiries.

You need to adopt a dual recruiting model for processing a high volume of candidates in a time of fewer job requisitions, while at the same time mining passive candidates for those strategic positions in divisions that are hiring. If yours is like most companies, you don’t have the technology to automate the screening process. However, many recruiting specialists do. This is the time to take the burden off your internal teams and utilize the latest available solutions with an external recruitment partner. Strategic partnerships with technology companies and RPO companies can be a proactive and effective way to address your talent challenges and get a jump on the competition.

In February, Pinstripe announced the selection of Jobs2Web’s RPO 2.0 technology for improving the inflow of passive talent and building talent communities and pipelines. Jobs2Web’s technology enables companies to tap into those passive and semi-active candidates who are using search engines, like Google, to conduct more than 200 million job and career-related searches each month. Jobs2Web delivers sourcing advantages by building interactive talent communities and pipelines, which deliver lower cost sourcing; shorter time-to-fill; higher-quality talent pipelines; significantly strengthened employment branding; and improved search engine visibility.

Pinstripe’s research has uncovered a shift in job seeker behavior. Instead of going directly to specific job sites, candidates are conducting their job searches through major search engines. This trend makes it more critical than ever for employers to enhance search engine optimization to better anticipate their ever-changing search criteria. Jobs2Web enables Pinstripe to advance recruitment marketing strategies and keep clients on top of next-generation recruiting techniques by leveraging the latest innovations.

In another strategic technology partnership, Pinstripe joined forces with HarQen, a web-telephony company, for their VoiceScreener technology to optimize the pre-screening of eligible candidates through customized, automated phone interviews. This is an extremely important tool in the current environment; jobs are at a historic low, but applicant flow is approaching historic highs. The technology pre-screens and qualifies applicants through a web-based process for generating pre-recorded phone interviews. The result is a significantly narrowed funnel of applicants who have been communicated with promptly and personally.
The technology and process redesign enables Pinstripe to better manage the unprecedented influx of applicants by improving speed, accuracy, and the quality of the candidate experience. Recruiters are able to distribute custom VoiceScreener interviews to job applicants for open positions and integrate their responses into the screening process, significantly increasing throughput while improving candidate service during the initial screening phase. Responses can be seamlessly shared with clients for their review, anytime, anywhere. Well-designed self-service is always viewed as better service in consumer surveys, and it’s high time we took a page from the consumer marketing and service books.

Millions of people are losing their jobs, and many of these people are highly skilled, talented individuals looking for new opportunities. Today, the availability of great talent is extraordinary, but finding that talent is harder than ever before. Technology has never been more valuable to our industry. Tools like those described above are transforming the way HR services are delivered and will make the difference between those HR and talent acquisition functions that just survive and those thrive.

Sue Marks is founder and CEO of Pinstripe, Inc., one of the nation’s top RPO providers. Previously, she established Wisconsin’s largest independent staffing company and an enterprise-wide RPO firm; both were sold to a Fortune 500 company. The President of Competitive Wisconsin, Marks earned her Bachelor of Science in business administration from Marquette University and is an annual participant in YPO’s Harvard Business School program.